Preet Bharara, the powerful Manhattan prosecutor who was among 46 US attorneys asked to step down late Friday, was fired on Saturday after he refused to resign following an order from attorney general Jeff Sessions.

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I did not resign, Bharara tweeted on Saturday afternoon. Moments ago I was fired.

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The prosecutor later said that his time as the US attorney for the southern district of New York will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life, no matter what else I do or how long I live.

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One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served, he said in a statement. He added the current deputy US attorney, Joon H Kim, would assume the role of acting US attorney.

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Over seven years as the top prosecutor in the southern district of New York, Bharara has pursued aggressive cases and investigations into corruption in politics and Wall Street. At the time he was asked to resign, Bharara was overseeing investigations into aides and associates of the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, and the Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio. His office also reportedly opened an investigation into Fox News, into whether the network failed to tell shareholders that it had settled sexual harassment claims made against its former CEO Roger Ailes. Since taking office, Bharara has prosecuted the former Republican state senator Dean Skelos, high-profile insider trading cases and a 120-person Bronx case believed to be the largest gang prosecution in city history.

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Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the most notable precedent for the mass removal of US attorneys was in 1993, when Bill Clintons attorney general, Janet Reno, asked for the resignations of prosecutors appointed by George HW Bush. Tobias said a problem with such abrupt requests was that they left prosecutors offices without permanent leadership.

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This is fairly disruptive, Tobias said. No ones been nominated for any of these 46 positions.

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The attorney general for New York state, the Democrat Eric Schneiderman, expressed similar concerns, saying that the presidents abrupt and unexplained decision had caused chaos in the federal government and led to questions about whether the justice departments vital and nonpartisan work will continue.

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Neither the White House nor the justice department have provided explanations about the sudden dismissal of the US attorneys.